Blogging for America

This site links political theory to practice.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

On the Backs of Women...

Yesterday the President issued an executive order re-iterating restrictions on using federal funds for elective abortions, as per the last minute health care reform negotiations. To read this Executive Order: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-acts-consistency-with-longst

The exact language from the Executive Order (which has the standing of law) reads:

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, section 508(d)(1) of Public Law 111-8) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

The President said that health care reform should not change any "long standing precedents" referring to the bans on abortion. The current federal bans on funding abortions are on the backs of poor women and women who serve in the military. If you are a poor woman receiving TANF and Medicaid, you must find a way to fund a legal abortion; if you are a woman serving in the military you must go outside the military's health care and off base to obtain (at your own cost) an abortion--not so easy if you are serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. . .

Mr. President, a longer standing precedent is the right of women to choose abortion (Roe v Wade).

But I also want to draw our attention to the second part of that paragraph from the Executive Order. It reads: new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

Thus, protecting those who discriminate against women's autonomy and right to choose from discrimination????!!!! Planned Parenthood and all full service women's health clnics should have complementary protection, no?

Monday, March 22, 2010

A Baby Step

What passes and passed as health care reform last night is a baby step. Oh yes, I am glad that this step was taken--that 30 million people will now have affordable health insurance (but its not quite universal health care even by 2019), that the health insurance industry will not be able to renege on people's health insurance when they need it most, pre-existing conditions and all (but not until 2014). That for a fee, parents may cover their children's health care insurance until their children are 26. That access to reproductive health care will be affordable to all women

. . .Except for access to abortions---85% of the health insurance companies did cover abortions prior, but now women will have to make 2 payments for the same coverage. . . can you say GENDER DISCRIMINATION LIVES in the halls of Washington DC?

That there will be tax credits for small businesses to offer health insurance to their employees, and said tax credits are immediate...yet health care remains still very linked to employment.

But our elected officials did not take the one best step (IMHO) single payer -- the system is in place and working. There are 5 populations that are well served by a single payer governmental system--medicaid, medicare, Veteran's Administration, the military and prisoners.

But let us hope that with this one baby step, soon health care reform will be walking, and running!

Dr.JAM is a professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at Marist College, Poughkeepsie NY. Her main focus is teaching students to be critical thinkers and active citizens. She worked in both the Koch and Cuomo administrations before returning to academia. She teaches Modern Political Thought, Contemporary Ideologies, Feminist Political Thought, American National Government, Political Ideas and Issues, Political and Social Movements, among other courses.
She writes a regular column (Walk the Talk) in InsideOut (tm). She has written many articles and books including The Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage (Rowman Littlefield, 2003). An active citizen, she served on the boards of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (where she once was cook); The Grace Smith House,currently she serves on the (executive) boards of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at ValKill and the Ulster County Democratic Women. $>